When is killing someone murder?

We have an interesting confirmation class this year, and they have a multitude of pressing moral questions .....

Persistently they have asked "what if you are a soldier, and you kill someone, have you broken the commandment thou shall not kill?" And if you do are you condemned to hell?" And "is there such a thing as a just war?". These questions are posed against the backdrop of politically inspired violence that is our daily experience and many have family members with in the armed forces who are participating in the violence. And then add to that backdrop the daily experience of starvation being used as a weapon against the weak and vulnerable, and that the average life expectancy is around thirty five - the effects of poverty and AIDS. Last week a twelve year old boy in a school where my son volunteers died of dehydration because his parents were too poor to buy sugar and salt to make an oral rehydration solution to keep him alive when he developed diarrhoea. Tragically this is not unusual.

I am at a loss at how to begin to give them a framework to consider these questions on murder and killing. There are no easy answers at any time, but just at the moment they are really of a personal nature to each of us.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions as to where I might begin?

I would so appreciate the help.

Imagine a world without ....

Last night we asked the kids in our confirmation group to imagine a world without....... mobile phones and ipods and internet and where you walked or biked to school rather than be dropped off by car and a world with chalk and chalkboards and the imminent threat of nuclear holocaust and so on. All this they could do. Sometimes they needed a little help but they got there.

Until we said imagine a world with out AIDS.

And they could not.

They could not imagine what it would be like to live in a world without AIDS.

And we who grew up in a world without AIDS were speechless.

Valentine

Four years ago I found an abandoned puppy on my early morning walk. She had been chucked out of a car and was grazed but otherwise physically unharmed. I found her on Valentines Day during a particularly bleak time in my life and took her to be a Valentine's gift from the Loving God.

So of course I called her Valentine.

She has always been slightly mad and given to crazy rushing about. She particularly hates anything that flies – birds, planes, microlights, butterflies, bees, moths leaves drifting in the air and especially crows. I suspect that in the time she lived on the street she was attacked by these opportunistic birds. If there is something flying about she will chase it barking furiously. If I step out the door she will charge ahead of me barking and eyes on the sky making sure that there is nothing up there that may harm me. She sleeps under my feet in my office, and will occasionally rush up barking at visiting clients. She talks continuously, and is very bright and mostly easy to train … except for the flying thing…. that is not something she will give up watching for.

She hates for me to be out of her sight. And the effects of the abuse show, not physically but in her behaviour.

I think it is true that most people don't really care for her. But I do. She reminds me day after day that God loves me.

Now she has a new challenge to face. In the last four weeks she has had three fits and the vet thinks she has epilepsy. He is loath to give her phenobarbitol unless the fits become very frequent as he says it is a sedative. Now I can imagine that lots of people will think that a sedative on this particular dog will be a good thing but to me it seems that it will change her entirely and she will not be the lunatic dog I know and love so much. If I don't have to I will be glad not to.

However the fits leave her confused and bewildered and not knowing her name almost. And being helpless to protect her or help her is hard. And I am angry that this poor, once abused dog has to suffer some more.

So I watch and wait and pray that God will reveal himself and in the mean time care as best I can for my beautiful dog.

Morning prayer

This morning has dawned clear, after weeks of overcast and rain.

And I have been out in the dawning where the air is so fresh that it is like wine and the sky is a delicate shade of pink and the robins and thrushes and cuckoos and sparrows and a myriad small seed eating birds sing praise and glory and wonder and where my dogs dance delightedly at the unusual chance of a early morning walk.

Some of my sense of being overwhelmed with work falls away in the sheer beauty and delight of the morning.

And in this moment wordless prayers of praise spill forth from me.

Second Station of the Cross

Jesus Accepts the Cross

The courtyard is beginning to bake in the morning sun. Within its high walls the heat builds up - stuffy and suffocating. There is no breath of wind to bring relief, or hope. The rising heat makes the cells and the rubbish stink.

He sits in the middle of the courtyard, shackled to a post. The soldiers cannot be bothered to lock Him in a cell, they will be executing Him soon. To them He is just another Jewish rabble rouser - they have no idea that they have in their power the Son of the Most High God. In their ignorance they go about the preparations for the executions. Under the far wall, and in the shade, they prepare the wooden crosses that the prisoners will carry to Golgotha. The carpenters, not caring much, carelessly nail the bloodstained planks together. Jesus’s eyes narrow against the glare as He watches them. In the midst of the pain, thirst and hunger He is transported back to another time when He worked as a carpenter - before He heard God’s fiery call go to all people and tell them that the Kingdom of God had come.

He remembers, remembers ............

          the quiet peace of His father’s workshop,

          the fragrant smell of wood shavings,

          the rasp of sandpaper smoothing the timber,

          the simple pleasure of constructing everyday pieces that ordinary people will use

          the skill in His hands as He turns raw, rough timber into things of beauty.                                                        

                                                                                                                

But the pain from the beating and crown of thorns brings Him abruptly back to the present. They are ready now. The other prisoners have been brought out.

He is hauled to His feet.

          They are handed their crosses.

                     Jesus staggers under its weight.

                               The soldiers do not care overmuch about this prisoner - it is just another execution.

There are no boundaries to Jesus’s love for us.

He willing accepts a lonely death.

Unknown, to be buried in an unmarked grave.

He willingly goes to His execution, He who is innocent amongst dies between men who are thieves and murderers.

He willingly accepts torture and pain, putting Himself into the hands of evil and ignorant men.

He willingly gives up His life.

Faced with such a Love as this how do we respond?

Stations of the Cross

All through my pre Lenten preparation and during these first few days of Lent I have been directed one way and another to meditate on the death and resurrection of Our Lord. Being a Catholic convert I thought of using the Stations of the Cross, but have been unable to find any that I connected with.

And so I have begun to write my own.

Here then is the first fruits .....

Jesus is Condemned to Death

Dawn is hours away, and He prays alone in Gethsemane. His friends, whom He calls His brothers, sleep nearby unaware that the end of His ministry has come and of the horror which will unfold. But He knows what lies ahead.

Gethsemane is quiet now,

          the wind has died away,

                     the heat of the day has given way to the

                      cold that rises before the dawn

                               the insects sound loud in the stillness,

                                         across the valley Jerusalem is dark,

Jesus has bowed His head in acceptance of what is to come.

He lifts his head as the sound of excited voices reach Him. Looking down to the gates of Jerusalem He sees the lights of torches winding across the Valley. He must face the darkness and evil now. Climbing up toward Gethsemane the rabble grow more and more excited. They have come armed to arrest one man whose crime has been to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven has come.

Abandoned, He faces the mob while His brothers disappear into the darkness.

Hoping that the darkness of the last hour of the night will hide the evil of their actions, Caiaphas and his fellow leaders try Him. In their fear of this simple carpenter from Galilee they do not go openly to the Council but conduct the sham trial in Caiaphas’s own home. Even then they cannot find witnesses who agree. In the midst of false accusations and wild tales Jesus is silent. Though they have no rights over the Lord of Heaven, He willingly grants them their hour of power.

Finally, His accuser’s concoct a charge that satisfies the letter of the law. They condemn Him to death. Still, He makes no protest. Now these self righteous leaders must go to the Roman dictators for permission to carry out the penalty. Their own lack of power exposed.

Pilate is beset. He has the might of the most powerful empire in the world at his back and yet governing this crazy bunch of religious zealots in an unimportant outpost of the empire is no simple matter. Daily his troops are harassed, ambushed and killed by these fanatics, and he needs the cooperation of the Jewish leaders to keep some semblance of order. Jesus is brought before him, and Pilate knows that the charges are bogus. He desperately searches for a way out. It is not Roman justice to condemn an innocent man.

Pilate

      questions Jesus, declaring Him innocent,

but the leaders and the mob are not satisfied,

      orders Jesus to be whipped

but the leaders and the mob are not satisfied,

      offers to free Him in accordance with custom

but the leaders and the mob are not satisfied,

      asks the gathered crowd what they want

Crucify! Crucify!

Now the leaders and the mob are satisfied.

Pilate has given way to mob justice, and washing his hands signs Jesus’s death warrant.

 There are no boundaries to Jesus’s love for us.

Most of us would have given way to despair if our closest friends ran away in our hour of need. Jesus accepted terrible loneliness out of His Love for us.

Most of us would have wailed and moaned if such injustice was perpetrated against us. Jesus gave up His right to justice out of His Love for us.

Most of us would have raged and used all the strength that is born of hatred to smash our oppressors. Jesus gave up His right to life out of His love for us.

Most of us would have blamed God and denied His goodness in the same awful situation. Yet Jesus trusted His Father’s Love for Him.

Most of us would have resented the helplessness that situation. Jesus made His weakness his prayer and so allowed the Father to reveal His Power.

Faced with such a Love as this, how do we respond?

Ash Wednesday Words

For a while now Ash Wednesday and Good Friday have been difficult days for me to observe. The crushing grief of these days has robbed me of myself, and the lovingly prepared liturgies have rendered me incapable of movement.

Last year I did go to the Mass at my sons Jesuit high school and was given warmth and love by the boys who had been or who were in my confirmation group and that made the solemnity and grief bearable. This year I took a deep breath and chose to attend Ash Wednesday Mass at the school again. In the interim there has been a new Rector appointed, only in the last few weeks, so the preparation for the service was undertaken by  lay people who are members of staff. Both of them are incredibly conservative and the service reflected this. As such it was a potently painful service, full of thundering and hell fire and damnation and seven hundred boys sat restively and disconnected from the proceedings. In that moment I gave thanks for Terri Pilaski and those she works with saying that Words Matter, for here before me was the living evidence of the alienating power of words.

Where, I wondered from my seat at the back, is the Grace of God in all this? Where is the celebration of that Grace which to my mind should have been the focus to the service. We are sinners. Yes. But what we celebrate during Lent is that God’s Grace reaches out to us, offering reconciliation and healing in the form of His most precious gift. His only son.

I have lost an eighteen year old nephew who was in my care for several years as the result of suicide and I had a beautiful, if physically incomplete, still born daughter. Last year my Dad, who was also my friend and mentor died suddenly. Those losses, amongst others, have marked my life with grief and sent me out to dwell in desert lands where the Living God is silent, where his language is silence. Once more on Ash Wednesday, and no doubt also on Good Friday I will wonder at a God who is silent yet sacrifices his most precious possession, his only son for the forgiveness of my sins. 

I wonder at his own sense of loss, and how he bears it. For mine has been nearly unendurable. 

I wonder when I feel so alone how he is able to connect ...

Out of balance

I am an accountant. Work that I love and after thirty five years still gives me a thrill.

But I appreciate that it is not work that most people would find exciting.

My profession is having a clean out and update and has changed the names of all sorts of things, without actually changing the statement's essential nature. Some statements have been named their old names seemingly from the beginning of time so it is not an easy process this learning to put new names to old tricks. As I have learned the new nomenclature I have been struck by how many names include "balance". And how often accountants say something balances or doesn't as the case may be.

We like to have both sides equal. In balance. Always.

And as I happen to be good at what I do my work balances.

My life however is an utterly different kettle of fish. It is frequently out of balance.

I thought I would use this blog as a way to explore some imbalances and to see if I can find a way of mirroring the balance I find in my work.